April 19, 2017
Nanango’s Ringsfield House – which shut its doors on March 31 – may remain closed longer than originally planned.
At Wednesday’s South Burnett Regional Council meeting, Properties portfolio chair Cr Terry Fleischfresser told fellow Councillors the Nanango Historical Society has advised it needs more time to finalise an asset list for all the buildings and objects in the historic complex.
In early March this year, the Society announced it needed to hand the property back to Council because its members were ageing and insufficient volunteers were stepping forward to help with maintenance duties.
At a public meeting called to discuss the hand-over procedure, a plan was drawn up to close Ringsfield for six to eight weeks from March 31 to allow the Society to catalogue Ringsfield’s contents while the Council called for expressions of interest from potential new operators.
Mayor Keith Campbell said he was confident another community group or a commercial operator would step forward.
However the task of auditing all the historical artefacts held at Ringsfield, along with their provenance and maintenance procedures, has proven bigger than expected.
Cr Fleischfresser said Council was willing to defer calling for EOIs until the Nanango Historical Society finished its work.
“This (audit) is very important in determining the ownership, who donated or funded the asset, the location and quantity of assets,” Cr Fleischfresser said.
Mayor Keith Campbell told southburnett.com.au that while the Council has yet to publish a call for EOI’s, it has already held preliminary discussions with one potential operator and has had approaches from others.
He hoped the Nanango community would show patience while the work was being carried out.
Community groups who use particular buildings at Nanango, such as the Nanango Film Society, are still able to do so while the main building is closed.
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